


Arise anew

by LMX



Category: Snowpiercer (2013), The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: AU, Child Labour, Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, Kidnapping, Movie Spoilers, Nonverbal Communication, Post-Movie(s), Tattoos, Violence, home grown sign language, off screen character death, pyrrhic victories, rambly disconnected storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 19:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3394481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Porthos' help, Grey survives the battle that should have taken his life. Choosing to stay in Paris, to join with the men he had travelled there to fight, Grey finds a new life for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arise anew

**Author's Note:**

> Snowpiercer is not required watching - if you preferred, you could read this as AU!mute!D’Art. There are only a few Snowpiercer spoilers, as it is very removed from Snowpiercer canon, however there’s at least two spoiler character deaths.
> 
> I've not really touched the Grey/Gilliam pairing here, but there are unavoidable hints of it existing. Read it as you will.

There were times when the end of a battle brought no glory, even when you wore the King’s colours and fought for a cause you felt just.

Today was one such battle, and there was little celebration in the strangled end to hostilities. It was hard to celebrate when, instead of hardened soldiers, they found themselves standing amongst the bodies of emaciated farmers with makeshift weapons and the scars of a hard and troubled life. Some victories lent only regret.

"Survivors?" Tréville called over, his horse shifting uneasily beneath him.

Athos looked up from the body at his feet - a woman, though none of the fighters on the Musketeer’s side had known it, she was dead with a shot to the chest. She clung to a charcoal drawing of a young boy, pressed to her breast even in death, and Athos wanted nothing more than to be far from here. From this horror he had a hand in bringing.

"A small number," he managed to answer his Captain. "Their leader was taken to speak with the Cardinal. There were two others with him."

"One more over here," Porthos called sharply. "In need of medical aid."

Athos moved reluctantly from the side of the woman, and crossed to where Porthos was kneeling over a bare chested boy, his gloved hands pressing his bandanna more heavily against a wound in the boy’s chest. The boy’s skin was littered with stark black ink, words and symbols, some marred by scarring and fresher wounds. The decoration was strangely beautiful, even bloodied as he was.

A small group of medics hurried over at Porthos’ shout, gathering the boy onto a stretcher to be transported somewhere cleaner for treatment. Porthos let them take over bearing down on his bandanna and stepped back to watch them leave.

"How did they get this far, Captain?" Porthos asked, as Athos went to gather their horses. "They were starving, barely armed, some were children, some were *women*. How did they get all the way to Paris?"

"I’m sure it’s a question the Cardinal will be asking," Tréville answered, his frown severe. "In the mean time, let’s see to our wounded. Athos, make arrangements for the dead."

Athos nodded as he handed over Porthos’ reins. “It will be done.”

There was a moment’s pause, as the three of them looked over the battlefield emptied of life, and then they turned to their tasks.

-

It was two days before they were all gathered once more, Aramis having been coopted into the medics ranks for a brief time as they worked to treat the dozen or more wounded Musketeers and the very few survivors of the troupe that had stormed Paris with demands to see the King. In the mean time, there had been a fair amount of grave digging for Athos and Porthos for the ones who hadn’t survived - a disproportionate number of the attackers to Musketeers.

Tréville stood in front of his desk, leaning his hip back against it, his stooped shoulders showing his weariness with the whole business.

"Another of the Cardinal’s Intendants," he said, and paused to give them a moment to recollect the last meglomaniac that the Cardinal had allowed to tax lands out of any semblance of his control, "By the name of Mason, has been misusing the Cardinal’s power to levy excess taxes in a handful of villages and leave favoured villages untaxed. The group who travelled to Paris… Their village had been taxed to starvation, and they assumed - as any would - that Mason’s actions were condoned by the King."

"It’s a hell of an achievement, what they did," Porthos acknowledged. "There wasn’t a horse between them. They must have walked for days, fighting off Mason’s men. Mason must have known his actions would earn him a hanging."

"Her actions," Tréville corrected.

There was a flash of surprise on Porthos’ face. “Regardless,” he went on. “We’re fortunate to have eighteen men still breathing.”

"Seventeen men and one young woman," Aramis said, his fatigue evident but briefly hidden behind a proud grin.

Tréville nodded his appreciation. “The King is unhappy with the actions of the Cardinal’s Intendant, it casts him in poor light with taxes at their highest in living memory. He is determined that we should help the survivors in any way necessary. We are told there are two young boys who were taken from their families by men associated with Mason, and delivered to Paris.”

Porthos growled something that might have been a curse if he hadn’t been in his Captain’s presence.

Tréville cast a glance his way but didn’t let it linger. “Their parents both died in the assault, but we would like to identify those to whom they were delivered and act against them. Hopefully return the boys home with their kinsmen, when they are hale enough to make the journey.” He looked to Athos. “I’ve told them I will put the three of you at their disposal, you’ll endeavour to help them find the missing boys.”

"Of course," Athos agreed, thinking of the woman clasping a child’s picture.

The Captain was already rounding his desk and retaking his seat when Porthos spoke again, the others already heading for the door at the dismissal. “Sir - the boy, the tattooed one, he was taken to the surgeon. Did he live?”

Tréville looked up from his desk, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I don’t know. I can ask - tattooed, you say?”

"Yes sir," Porthos nodded. "All over."

"I’ll be sure to ask," Tréville said gently. "In the meantime, please bring me some good news on the stolen babes. I need some way to sleep at night after this mess."

-

There were things Aramis had learned in his life that he had truly never wanted to know, and hoped one day to forget. One of these was the price paid annually - in some mockery of a wage - for a young boy who was small enough and nimble enough to climb into a space too small for an adult and do work too fiddly for grown hands.

The building they raided at last, when finally they had a lead on the illegal taking of children (sometimes hard to differentiate from those children who had been legally sold by their families with contracts of years in some cases - a reality that had shocked Aramis, and led Porthos to shake his head at his naivety) was a mill. The sheer noise and movement within concealed their movements until they could find a task master, and then identify his superior. The work didn’t cease as Athos disappeared into the mill itself, leaving Aramis and Porthos to demand that the man produced papers for every worker on the site, or release any that had none into the care of the Musketeers to be returned to their families.

By the time they had established that Mason had claimed parental control over the two boys - the paperwork bore her signature, and the mill’s master was adamant he’d done no wrong in purchasing their labour - Athos had reappeared with one boy balanced on his hip, another hand in hand at his side. The King’s name gave them leverage to remove the boys from their tasks, but Aramis left still fuming - aware of how many boys and girls remained within the maws of that wretched place, tied to contracts signed by the ones who should keep them near and safe but who could not, or would not do so.

It was with great pleasure that they were able to return the boys - both with matching dazed blank-eyed looks that made Aramis fear further for what they had suffered - to those survivors of the village they once called home.

The small collection of men had been set up in one of the Palace’s many suites, far enough away from the King and Queen to be effectively ignored, but well enough served that the King’s guilt could be assuaged. The woman who had survived the journey and its many battles had been housed with the Queen’s retinue, where she shared the Queen’s company often, distraction from her of-late uncertain relationship with the King.

It was to the combined group that they presented the boys - one still gripping Athos’ doublet just as tightly as he himself was gripped in the Musketeer’s arms, the other refusing to be lifted from the floor as he staggered, with exhausted determination, through the marble-floored staterooms. The leader of the ragged band, a man named Curtis, made a pained noise as he saw them enter, and soon they were the centre of attention.

Aramis watched carefully as the blank eyes scanned the group - perhaps for a parent. Knowing one would not be found, he knelt by the side of the boy who held his hand on one side and Porthos’ on the other.

"Do you know these?" he indicated the group. "They are your kin."

A faint nod, and the group moved forward as one, swamping the Musketeers as they celebrated the return of their lost boys. Athos released the child in his arms as the boy leant towards Curtis himself, and the man looked as though he’d been blessed by such an expression of trust, his eyes wide and wet as he kissed the boy’s dark curls. Aramis’ hand was released, and the second boy walked out into the group, carefully touching and studying the people. The thought that he might still be looking for family amongst the forest of legs stuck in Aramis’ throat and he turned to hide his face, only to find Porthos in tears behind him.

"We should leave them to their reunion," he managed, hearing the strangled note to his own voice.

"Porthos," Athos broke in before they could move for the door. With a gentle inclination of his head he indicated the young man stood a short distance apart from the others, watching them with a wary air. His tattoos were less stark when he wasn’t made pale from loss of blood, but still as noticable through the open front to a crown-gifted shirt, that tan chest bisected by a thick line of bandages that covered the wound that Porthos had tried so hard to stem.

Porthos crossed the room, leaving the others to watch over the group. He offered his hand to the boy as soon as he was in reach, seeing him already tensing as if anticipating an attack. Not so long ago they had faced one another across a battlefield; Porthos didn’t blame him for the reaction, but he could make his approach as unaggressive as possible.

"My name’s Porthos," he greeted, and the boy finally took his hand. He didn’t allow Porthos to come any closer, keeping him a good arm’s reach away and stepping back as soon as the offered hand was shaken. At first Porthos thought his introduction might be snubbed, but the boy gave an odd gesture, bringing his left arm across his chest to push back the linen sleeve and indicating his forearm with the other hand. It took Porthos a moment to realise that he was supposed to read the word written there, and another to do so. "You’re Grey?" he asked, and grinned as the boy gave a proud nod, still unsmiling.

"We’re glad to see you free of the surgeon," Aramis said as he and Athos joined them. "A miraculous escape from a grievous wound."

The boy’s expression hardened further, but any retort - whatever form it might have taken - was interrupted by Curtis’ approach, and he stepped backwards and left the room.

Curtis looked after him for a moment before turning back to Porthos. “Please, don’t be offended by Grey’s reticence. He doesn’t speak.”

"No offence was taken," Athos assured, "We meant only to congratulate your man for his resilience."

"Grey is not my man," Curtis replied sharply, then shivered and met Aramis’ gaze, then Athos’. "Forgive me…" He gathered himself, straightened to his not inconsiderable height. "We started with another man at our head - Gilliam. A man of great conviction and intellect - a nobleman, a leader, though he treated every one of us as though our lives were worth the same as his own." Curtis looked away again, but continued - "Grey was his… enforcer, personal guard is perhaps a better description. They cared a great deal for one another, and we received news that Gilliam had fallen to Mason’s men not long after we moved forwards, taking Grey from his side. I’m not sure he will forgive me for removing his protection from someone he held dear."

"He fought as well as any other at your side," Porthos said, his tone gentle in the face of the man’s distress.

"He fought for Gilliam," Curtis replied, with a glance towards the door through which Grey had disappeared. "Not for me."

"What will you do, now your journey is over?" Athos asked, moving the topic away from an obviously painful loss. "Now you have had an audience with the Cardinal."

Curtis glanced back to where the boys were being passed from joyful hand to joyful hand, an icon of their success. “We have our boys, now, and an explanation from the Cardinal. Mason will be arrested, and her men removed from our lands. Once that is done, we will have time to rebuild our lives with what little we have left. There’s still time to make stocks for winter, if we work together.”

"Your plan is to return?" Aramis asked.

"What else is there for us?"

"You fought in a manner never before seen," Athos said. "You went into battle against some of the best soldiers in Paris armed with nothing more than what you could carry from your fields. It will go into legend - what you have achieved here. Any military force in France would be proud to take your men for training. You’d be wise to use what leverage you have with the King while you still have his ear."

"We aren’t fighters. That was never our…" Curtis’ eyes were hollow, and he looked back at the celebration going on without him. "We never wanted these things that have happened to us. We never wanted war. Perhaps Grey would be interested, now Gilliam is gone. Maybe some of the younger men, who have known nothing but this life, this fight." He shook his head sharply, as if to dismiss thoughts with the physical action, turning to look back at the Musketeers. "Those of us who are old enough to remember our lives as they were before… we just want to return to our homes and try to reclaim them."

-

The group left with six horses and a carriage, an outfit of clothes each, the tools they had carried with them, and provisions enough for the ride home. Even with those meagre gifts, the Cardinal had muttered his complaints at the King’s easy spending. When all movement ceased there was only the three Musketeers and Grey. The lad stood, his posture all challenge, and turned his back on the gate through which the others had left to glare at the men arrayed before him.

"Are you sure?" Athos was the first to speak. The boy nodded firmly in reply.

"Well Athos, seems you won’t be the most taciturn of our small group anymore," Porthos teased, throwing an arm around the boy’s unflinching shoulders and pulling him down the road towards the garrison. "Come, let’s see what skills you bring - I have hope still to see someone best Athos at the sword. He’s such a showoff."

The garrison’s courtyard was empty when they arrived, though before long there were curious gazes at several windows and a couple only half concealed by the stable walls. Even those who hadn’t been involved in the battle at the city gates knew of the men who had walked half of France to challenge the King’s taxes, and the fight itself was a burgeoning legend.

The boy held a sword as if he’d never touched one before - and perhaps he hadn’t, there certainly hadn’t been anything so purpose made in their small arsenal - but he needed only showing once how to wield it and, after observing a short display between Athos and Aramis, to raise it in guard as if he were born to do so. Athos explained patiently that their swords were thrusting weapons, whereas Porthos held a heavier hacking tool, and with that understanding he seemed to flow into swordsmanship as though filling a void. He over extended, threw himself into opponent’s guards and left himself exposed, but there was a skill and understanding in weapons handling that made Athos nod approvingly and Aramis and Porthos exchange amused grins.

When presented with a pistol, he was more reluctant, holding it stiffly and with obvious resistance in his body. He fired obediently, but inaccurately, and reloaded as per Aramis’ instructions before firing once more, but on the second shot his tension broke and he near threw the empty weapon aside, walking away before it had finished clattering on the tabletop. He walked as far as the gate into the yard, pressing his forehead to the wall.

"A Musketeer that cannot stand to weild a pistol," Aramis mused quietly, his voice reaching Grey but not coaxing him to lift his head.

"Give him a chance," Pothos’ voice rumbled back. "He’s barely out of the worst battle of his life, he’s seen more men dropped by pistol fire than any farm boy should."

Athos said nothing, but the shadow beside Grey darkened as the Musketeer joined him in the gateway. He forced himself to turn, not sure of his reception given the display of childish anger against an inanimate object. He expected a challenge, a frown at least, but Athos simply stood silent and straight at his side, as though at guard over him.

As Grey looked back into the yard, Aramis was cleaning the discarded pistol without a care, and Porthos had taken up talking about some woman he’d admired the day before. His vocabulary was gentle and affectionate, and Grey was sure he had never admired a woman or heard one admired in such a way in all his life.

"The pistol is not your weapon," Athos surmised, "But I have seen you throw a knife. Is that your preference?"

Pleased to be offered an escape to the shame burning at his cheeks, Grey pulled the blade from the back of the belt he had been gifted, weighting it briefly in his hand as he stepped away from Athos and threw forcefully at the target. They had been shooting from ten yards, and from the gateway it was easily doubly that, but the knife stood proud in the central ring of the target as Grey pressed his hand to the ache of the still healing wound in his chest. The three Musketeers stared, and it was Porthos who recovered first, with a grin and a laugh.

"Well now, Aramis. Seems you’ve got some competition in marksmanship after all."

-

They passed a day, testing and teaching, discussing uniforms and weapons, speaking of past trials and battles in a way that made Grey boggle. He had a sword, a dagger and a pistol - the first two gifts from the King for his choice to stay and join the Musketeers, the last found on his body when he was taken from the field of battle and kept with him. He had yet to tell them that he took it from the body of a Musketeer that he had killed, but perhaps they knew. It was possible they knew its former owner, and had identified it as stolen immediately, but they hadn’t commented on it. Aramis had cleaned it for him after his first attempts to shoot it - it had been nothing but an adornment on the battlefield, as he’d not had time to find powder and shot for it, and he hadn’t had cause to try to shoot it again, though he now wore a powder horn and a small bag of shot on his belt.

As dusk started to fall, and the last of the guardsmen called in to close out the day’s missions with their Captain, Porthos pushed another roll into his hands and considered the failing light. “There’ll be a place for you at the garisson when you earn your commission, but ‘til then we should find you lodgings.”

"Constance," Athos said firmly, without looking up from the cup of wine he had halfway to his face.

"Constance?" Porthos parroted back. "Who’s Constance?"

Aramis moved closer, taking a seat on the bench to stare at his brother. “Can it be,” he gasped theatrically. “That our Athos - who would eschew all female company - has found a nighttime companion?”

Grey looked between the three of them, bemused at this sideshow that had developed and more curious about these men who had seemingly taken him in than he could express.

"M. and Mme. Bonnacieux," Athos corrected himself with a glower. "A merchant tailor and his wife, they have a spare room which they let. I stayed there when I first arrived in Paris. It was very suitable."

"And the room is available at present?" Aramis asked, ignoring the frosty look.

"I would presume so, though a visit should confirm it."

"Does it suit you?" Porthos asked Grey, and he started a little to be addressed, sure that he’d succeeded in falling into the background the way he was familiar with. It was going to be exhausting to be with these men and be expected to be so present, all of the time. Even Gilliam had understood the need to be out of sight from time to time. Porthos accepted his nod as agreement, and the men were all on their feet without a word to oneanother, as though speaking without voice.

It seemed they were on their way to the house Bonnacieux.

Though the three Musketeers had not known the boy long, and two of their number had never met the kindly landlady, they were surprised, all three, at the bashful greeting between the young wife of M. Bonnacieux and the hitherto cooly collected Grey. Athos especially, being well aware of the strength of character the woman possessed, was bemused by her blushing enthusiasm as Grey was introduced and his situation explained. The room was free for the moment, it seemed - the previous tenant had been arrested for duelling and was taking up a room at the Châtelet instead. She glared at Athos briefly, as if he took some responsibility for this event, but her eyes softened into a smile as she turned back to Grey.

The three left him to the lady’s tutting remark at how thin he was - and surely they had something around here somewhere that would feed him up just right. The young solider was in good hands.

-

"I told you to state your business, swine, else it’ll be the Châtelet for you!" The shout echoed around the streets, near empty in the face of a sweltering midday.

"That sounds like trouble," Aramis mused, quickening his steps with excited expectation.

"The best kind," Porthos agreed as the unseen tableau gained the sound of drawn steel.

They rounded the street corner to find Grey facing off against three Red Guards, one with sword already drawn, the other two with hands on hilts but perhaps more aware of the punishment for duelling in the streets of Paris. Grey could not claim to be uninformed, but his sword was still held bare by his side.

"Speak!" the Red Guard demanded.

"Do we tell them?" Porthos asked Aramis, keeping a wary eye on the other two guards as they watched from the street corner.

"But Porthos," Aramis replied, resting one shoulder against the brick and totally at ease, "How will they ever learn if they don’t make mistakes?"

Grey shot them a glance, and returned his intense attention to the guard with sword drawn. He wasn’t at guard, and if he hadn’t had his sword in his hand anyone would think his stance unaggressive. Still, his parry of the guard’s first blow was effortless, and of the two following.

The guard stepped back and Aramis and Porthos came quickly to flank Grey as the second two guards started to lift their swords. “Now then, lets at least try to be honourable about this,” Porthos warned.

With a shout, and presumably hoping his opponent would be distracted by his comrades’ appearance, the first guard sprang forwards, and was once again neatly rebuffed. This time Grey pressed his clear advantage and drove the man back the few steps to stand between his companions, disarming him with a flourish that Aramis would later lay proud claim to teaching him.

As red as the accents on his jacket, the man stamped towards Grey, shouting, “Arrest them!” to his companions.

Aramis stepped forwards then, and Porthos pulled Grey back a step as he tensed. “On what charge, sir?” Aramis asked. “Duelling? You’re as guilty yourself.”

"And what is the word of two Musketeers and their shadow against the Red Guards?" the man scoffed. "I’ll have you before the Cardinal and you’ll be hung before daylight. Perhaps we came across the three of you duelling?"

Porthos hauled on Grey’s doublet as he surged forwards in response to the threat. “Wait,” he growled into the younger man’s ear.

"Sirs," Aramis continued, his words polite, though his tone dripped derision. "You should know that we work directly for Captain Tréville, and he is well aware how unlikely it would be for brothers such as we three to duel. I ask you to remove yourself from this situation before it becomes any worse for yourselves. Consider how easily you were disarmed by our student."

The guard gathered up his sword with a stilted grace, and the three removed themselves with much grumbling. Porthos let Grey tug his jacket free of his grip and grinned as he rounded on the two of them. “Well then, who’s for lunch?”

Athos was already sat in the garrison courtyard when they arrived, a cup of wine in hand and Serge standing over his shoulder with a disapproving look on his face. The old soldier brightened immediately when he saw three more men to feed, and disappeared back into his makeshift kitchen without them needing to ask.

Porthos missed Grey’s gesture, just catching the exasperated tone in the set of his shoulders and the furrow of his brow as he rounded to take a seat beside Athos.

Athos - as seemed to be his way - had caught both gesture and meaning as easily as if Grey had spoken aloud, and replied; “Of course she feeds you, you came into her home a phantom of starvation.” His voice had that tired tone that said he didn’t expect to be doing much talking tonight. They’d have to watch him for the turn in his mood, somedays the tiredness lead to drink, some nights beyond that to bar fights where recklessness knew no bounds. At least they could hope to force a little food on him before he got so far.

"Besides," Aramis added, "Your training will ensure your food does more than feed your belly as you use more energy than you are accustomed. Until you fill out to the lovely Mme. Bonnacieux’s satisfaction she’s unlikely to stop."

Porthos gathered Grey was bemoaning Constance’s continuing attempts to feed him to excess. “Not flaunting your malnourished body every time you wish to speak to her is likely to help,” he added his own chiding as Aramis laughed.

With a more pointed frown, Grey made a short turning motion against the side of his chest where Porthos knew the image of a clock to be hidden by his doublet, and then a C which he took to mean Constance and a tap to his upper arm. Porthos had no skills in Latin or Spanish as Athos and Aramis, but he felt sure he could catch hold of this language - made of mime and gesture coupled with the words on Grey’s skin - that they were inventing for themselves, if he had time.

The gesture backwards - or counter clockwise - on the clock was in the past, or a query about how long something had taken, or something that had been but wasn’t any more. The C was certainly Constance, and the tap to the arm… Down that arm was… Porthos searched his memory, absently bemused that the boy had been exposed so many times in his presence that his tattoos were fixed in his mind… a short excerpt from a poem on fields that came over his shoulder, but that was higher up his arm than he had indicated, and then there was the pictograph of a book, and a line of tallies that tapered down to his elbow that were not spoken of. The book then.

With context, it was clear that he was telling them that Constance no longer needed to see his body to know the marks, his words. The book must represent learning, Porthos realised, and he wondered how the boy had ever chosen such marks, knowing they would form his entire lexicon.

"If she has learned," Porthos said, confident of his understanding, "Then she has set the three of us to shame."

"Speak for yourself," Athos murmured, already heading for the gate. His dark mood had finally broken, his expression gone grim in a way that spoke of an extended bout of drunkenness in his near future. His food lay untouched on the bench, and Serge scowled even deeper when he emerged to find Athos gone. Aramis looked up into the sky, as if to judge how early they were losing Athos to the tavern, and then turned his subdued expression on Porthos.

Grey watched him go before pulling up his sleeve to tap the ‘what’ on his wrist and gesturing at Athos’ retreating back.

"Our Athos is a complicated man," Porthos offered. "The melancholy strikes him at odd moments, it’s nothing we have done or can do. We’ll help him home later when he’s drunk it into submission."

"While we wait - food!" Aramis interrupted with forced enthusiasm, taking a plate from Serge. Grey looked remarkably uninspired, but then he’d been complaining of the comely Mme Bonnacieux’s feeding. It must have taken some feeding to make a starved boy turn down food. Porthos had certainly never reached that point - but then they were different forms of men.

Being now well fed, and entering a heavy training regime, Grey was filling out across the shoulders and in the arms, and certainly his ribs were less visible than they had once been - Aramis was of the opinion he’d grown another inch as well, but Porthos thought that might just be the absence of hunger pangs allowing him to stand straighter - but he was still leen. From the day he had bought his first meal with his soldier’s wage, Porthos had started growing solidly in every aspect. His fighting style had gone from fast and nimble to slow and strong within a year, and his appetite remained a formidable thing to this day, as Athos and Aramis could attest.

As Grey turned his back on the food Serge laid out, leaving the loyal man’s hard work snubbed, Porthos pushed Athos’ abandoned plate towards Aramis, and claimed Grey’s for himself. He wouldn’t waste what wasn’t wanted.

-

"We need a way for you to speak that doesn’t require you stripping half naked any time you’re searching for a word," Porthos growled, near dragging Grey from the second tavern that night, Aramis following behind with Grey’s abandoned jacket and his own weapon belt. They stopped once it was obvious that they weren’t being followed by the trouble they’d inadvertently stirred up - Grey reaching for a word that was rather more tip-of-the-collarbone than tip of the tongue and quite offending the barman with his unexpected exposure in front of the man’s daughter. Aramis handed over the jacket and took the time to arrange his gun belt - rather hastily reclaimed in the face of imminent violence.

Grey settled his coat and looked back towards the light cast by the bar’s entrance. He asked of Athos with an A-formed hand resting above the hilt of his sword and a quirked eyebrow, and gestured back towards the open door to make sure the others understood his question.

"He’ll follow," Aramis reassured. "He knows we’ll head to the Second Oak next, but he won’t abandon a half drunk bottle unless he’s forced to."

"Else he didn’t notice us leave," Porthos put in. "In which case we’ll come back later to drag him home."

As one they turned their path towards the next bar, on what was now a well trodden route. Grey was still surprised by how easily the roads of Paris had become known to him. When he’d first arrived, the sheer size of the place had seemed as unreasonable as the population that inhabited it - how could so many people live off so little land? And how could anyone ever hope to know how to get from one place to another through labyrinthine streets without a guide? The thoughts seem naive to him now, as he walked the route with brothers in arms.

"Athos seems to manage," Porthos mused, and then realising they had not followed his train of thought, added - "In understanding without…" A gesture indicated Grey’s déshabillé.

"Athos has his own skills," Aramis said blandly. "Talking without talking is truly a strength. But Athos has words to fall back on, reluctant as he is sometimes to use them."

"We don’t need to be able to talk, we’ve got plenty of words and you understand them well enough." Porthos screwed his face up in vaguely drunken confusion at his own words, before continuing, "We need understanding enough that your gesture will indicate a word without needing to expose the skin."

Grey raised an eyebrow, feeling sure this should not be a revelation to his friends, though apparently it was enough of one to merit discussion.

"I’d always assumed Athos was guessing half the time anyway," Aramis said. "Or speaking despite a lack of understanding." Grey gave him a look that spoke of deep offence. "Really, he understands you? You converse and exchange words?"

Grey nodded firmly, pressing both hands in a gesture to the borrowed sword which now sat invariably at his side.

"We know he’s been teaching you the sword, of course," Aramis agreed. "But that is a language of the body in which you excel, few words are needed."

Grey grinned, tapping absently at his hip where words to the same effect were marked in Gilliam’s hand on his skin.

"This body that is made of war, Speaks the sparking blade and sings a battle cry," Athos recited as he fell into step with them, and Grey was left wondering if he had ever been so exposed in front of the Musketeer, or whether the poem was known to him, and its associations incidental. Thinking of the others’ words, he caught Athos’ attention and touched a finger to ‘where’, without bothering to expose his forearm beneath jacket and shirt. "I don’t remember," he answered immediately, though perhaps not the question Grey had intended him to. His expression was muddied with alcohol and sorrow. "Possibly something I read as a child. I’m sure there are more verses, but that’s the only line I can remember. Do you know it?"

Grey pressed his palm hard against Gilliam’s name and firmed his lips against the pain memory brought. He met Athos’ gaze and they shared a moment of understanding before the others broke the melancholy mood by moving them forwards once more, towards the Second Oak.

"Alright," Aramis said, tone altogether too bright for the hour. "A wager - the three of us will be fluent in the words of our newest brother by month’s end, else we will together buy him a horse worthy of a Musketeer."

The indication of balance or reversal - an ‘and if not?’ though not so direct as to be an easy comparison - was to the scales stencilled on his lowest rib, and Athos smirked. “If you consider that we have succeeded,” he answered, rather pointedly though Grey suspected it was at least part guess as to his intent, “You will save to purchase the animal yourself. We won’t continue to be seen riding alongside the garrison’s spare nag, she’s too old now for such adventures as ours, however light you might be on her back.”

A month later they would determine the wager had fallen in Grey’s favour, and while it would take them two months more to bring together the funds to buy the promised horse, the leaps and bounds by which their comprehension had improved meant that they found themselves easily fluent before the prize was delivered.

-

Aramis had his arms crossed over his chest, his frown deep. “The Captain is a good man, and intelligent,” he insisted. “He will understand if you tell him no.”

'I want to say yes,' the reply came, and it was no longer a surprise to understand, but Aramis was pleased all the same.

It was Porthos who took over the argument a moment later. “What he asks is a step below our usual tasks. We don’t usually take on such distasteful duties.”

"We’re soldiers," Aramis insisted, "Not assassins."

The look he received in reply suggested disbelief and a vague level of scorn. Grey reached out to rap his knuckles against the stiff leather of Aramis’ pauldron, and Aramis made a guess in the face of the unknown.

"Taking such missions will not win you your commission any faster," he said firmly. "These underhand actions are the Cardinal’s remit - there’s a reason the Red Guard are dressed for hiding around dark corners."

Grey made a gesture that seemed to encompass his whole self, and Porthos near enough growled his disagreement. “You’re nothing like those scum, and if you’re to prove your worth to the King you’ll find another way to do this. We’ll help you find it.”

Athos, saying nothing, simply gestured to the other two, as if to point out that they were saying just what he had been saying since Grey had brought Treville’s order to him that morning. In the face of that agreement, Grey nodded easily, and returned to his study of the map beneath his hands. If they were sure, if they thought there was a better way, then they would have to find a better way.

Coming to stand before the Captain that afternoon with a dissenter well and truly run out of town and no more blood on their hands than there had been the day before, Grey was in receipt of the very proudest of smiles.

"Very well," the Captain said, as if ending a conversation that none of the four had been present for. "Enough games. There’s a man in the Châtelet at this very moment who we know to be in possession of a great deal of gunpowder."

Between the three Musketeers, Grey grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [tumblr](http://lmx-v3point3.tumblr.com)


End file.
